Quick! Think about the dumbest song you have ever heard.
If Meatloaf’s “I Would Do Anything for Love, But I Won’t Do
That” did not immediately pop into your head then I would implore you to
reconsider. However, if you thought of “Call Me Maybe” then you raise a good
point that I will have to take into account the next time I am ranting on the
worst songs in history.
If you disagree with me then I respect your opinion and I
will not stoop to the level of publicly proclaiming a well thought out list of
why this particular song is dumber than the song that you thought of. Wait, who
am I kidding? Of course I am going to give you a list.
Reason number 2: The song takes an excruciating 12 minutes
to finally finish and Meatloaf never really says what exactly he would not do
for love. Did I say “excruciating”? That’s harsh, but is it too much to ask
that a singer know what he is singing about before we hand him a Grammy for his
efforts?
Reason number 3: If you are willing to name yourself
Meatloaf, what could you possibly not be willing to do for love? This is
rhetorical; I really do not want to know the answer to this question.
Reason number 4: This song in itself has produced one of the
greatest logical fallacies in music history. You can’t say you would do
anything and then follow it up with an exception. The word “anything” is an
all-encompassing term that means there can be no exception.
Reason number 5: As dumb as this song obviously is, it has
not stopped us from making it the number one worship song of our heart. As much
as we would all hate to admit it, we all have a huge but that gets in the way of everything God wants to do in our life.
Not a butt, but a “but.” An exception. A thing that sits at the back of our
mind every time we think about God’s plan for our life verses our own plan. We
want to be a good Christian and tell God that we would do anything for Him but
if we are really honest with ourselves we know that we have a whole list of
things we really hope God never asks us to do. We lift our hands in worship and
sing out loud that we would do anything in our love for Him, but then whisper
to our inner most being that we won’t do “that.”
Most of us, myself included, never actually admit that there
are things we refuse to do for God. Instead we say things like “I would love to
serve in any way I can but God knows my abilities and what I can handle so I
know that He would never ask me to go there.” Or “I really respect them for
doing that for God. They must be a special kind of person because I could never
do that.” Or even more common, “I am doing ______, _____ and _______ for God, I
don’t think that He minds if I don’t do one more thing.”
We seem to have this idea that our interpretation of our own
gifts and interests are the only deciding factors in determining what God has
called us to do. We think that we can look at something that does not interest
us and know for certain that God could not have called us there. Our “I
couldn’t” turns into an “I wouldn’t” very quickly. We are plagued by
Africaphobia. This is not necessarily a fear of the continent in general, but
an intense fear that as soon as you tell God you will do anything for Him He
will immediately demand that you sell all of your possessions to go live in a
mud hut preaching to tribal people in loin cloths. We fear the crazy dangerous life God is
capable of asking us to live.
This is a legitimate fear. The Bible is full of people who
were in the middle of living their boring comfortable life when God came in and
asked them to do something crazy. Africa looks different for a lot of people.
I tend to be an adrenaline junkie so doing something as
crazy exciting as moving to Africa sounds like fun. I would love for God to
send me there because it would make for a good story and I would probably
become famous for reaching hundreds of people and then be called a modern day
Paul. At least, that is how I picture it in my head. For me, my Africa, is a
place where I would get no credit or recognition and spend my whole life under
appreciated.
Your Africa could be the person who you know Jesus died for
but you still refuse to love because they hurt you.
Your Africa could be talking to complete strangers about the
truth of the Gospel when you are the furthest thing from being a people person.
Your Africa could be getting on stage and speaking, or
getting off stage and not being noticed.
Your Africa could be in a room full of pre-pubescent human
beings known as “children” that you are responsible for.
Your Africa could be a real Africa and the idea of leaving
your home to go anywhere for God terrifies you.
When we have things that we refuse to give to God we live as
if God does not want the best for us. We believe He was good enough to get us
where we are right now but He does not know enough to make us happy for life
and whatever He is asking us to do now will make us miserable for life.
Don’t we know God better than that? Has He not proved
Himself from the beginning of time to be a God who knows what He is doing?
Doesn’t He always come through with the best? What if what God is asking you to
do is exactly what you have always wanted to do but never knew it?
Where is your perfectly justified Africa that you need to
give to God?
What are you going to do for God in this next year that you
refused to do this year?
Leave Meatloaf alone, just tell God you would do anything
for love and mean it. Jesus meant it.
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